Only a moral coward would even think of tarting up his anti-Israeli position in a "non-biased" "artistic" work and selling to the naive as such.

A moral coward? Now what exactly do you mean by that? My concept of moral cowardice would be hiding behind the ideals of whatever party happens to be most popular without ever voicing your own opinions on any subject. I don't see how you could possibly call Klinghoffer that exactly. The opera shows the events from a point of view that is not at all popular.

How stunningly couragous of the man! Putting mass murderers of women and children on the same moral footing as the murdered women and children. Bravo! No wonder the average American finds it so difficult to respect the "artsy" crowd.

Where to begin with this one... First of all, this statement shows a basic misunderstanding of the different kinds of terrorism, as you call it, that exist in the world right now. There is Terrorism (note the capital T) which is ideology driven and has the pure goal of killing as many people as possible in order to, somehow, achieve an extremely far-fetched ideal. This is what Al Queda is and all of the other Islamic fundamentalist terror groups, and what is accounting for most of the attacks in Iraq, Europe, and here.
Then there is the much broader "terrorism" which is reserved for anyone else who uses violence to try to achieve their tactics. These are groups like Hamas, the IRA (until very recently), the actual Iraqi bit of the Iraqi resistance. Hell, the American patriots at the beginning of the American Revolution or the French working class in their Revolution. These are all groups made up of people who, one way or another, have been wronged. These are people who don't necessarily want to kill people but have reached the point where violence is the only way they see to achieve results.
Now to your question - we're looking at Israelis and Palestinians on the same level? Yes, we are. These are both groups of people that have been wronged for hundreds of years. The Palestinians were wronged when Israel was created by the UN on land that was theirs. (Saul, leave it alone.) The Israelis and the Jewish people have been wronged countless times throughout history that I won't even begin to go into. Both of these groups have had just as much crap done to them, and both use violent tactics to achieve their (conflicting) goals - it just happens that Israel has a government and an army to help out.

No it couldn't.

Why not? Please enlighten me as to what the difference is, exactly. Please don't use the argument "becuase I said so." Israel has an army to do this sort of thing and Palestine doesn't?

Don't worry, it only upsets thinking people.

See above. Do not claim to be a thinking person when you hypocriticaly accuse someone else of being a "moral coward."

See, Karl's post.

What's your point? John still didn't need that kind of publicity, no matter what Karl says. If you're trying to claim that John wouldn't have been as sucessful as he is without the negative publicity this opera brought him, I think you're wrong. The man is a very fine composer and this opera didn't have any effect on that.

Yeah, that will really help us understand what he's straining to persuade us to grasp.

That isn't the point. You taking the 2 hours to watch this opera would mean that we could actually discuss the opera itself and what is so controversial about it, rather than what is controversial about the idea of the opera.

I don't know anyone of such weak moral conviction that they could be dazzled by such twaddle into indecision about who's the terrorist and whose the victim and then try to sell the notion that the terrorist is a sympathetic character.

Once again, you show astounding ignorance when it comes to the causes of terrorism, much like others who talk the way you do. If you're going to fight a war against terrorism it would do us all well to stop and consider what terrorism is and why it exists. Here's a hint: invading countries doesn't stop it. It created more of it, as we have plainly seen. Also, please don't accuse people of moral inadequacy simply becuase they don't agree with you.

MahlerSnob wrote: The Palestinians were wronged when Israel was created by the UN on land that was theirs.

That is a gross misstatement of fact. There was never a "Palestinian people" -- most of the Arabs living in the British Mandate in 1947 were Jordanians, Syrians, Lebanese and Egyptians. The land was inhabited by both Jews and Arabs for millenia. Jews lived in Jerusalem, Hebron, Haifa, Safed, Tiberias, Shechem and other places in the area for thousands of years. The land was never "Palestinian", there was no "Palestinian people" until the PLO created the name in 1964; the UN had simply partitioned the land between Jews and Arabs, which it had a right to do under its charter.

The following article by Mark S. Rosenblit explains the ethnic and political history of the region insofar as this issue is concerned:

"Palestinian" Identity As Propaganda Device

A prime example of propaganda masquerading as fact can be found in the modern assertion by "Palestinian" Arab and other revisionist historians that, even before the dawn of Christianity, an ancient nation-state known as "Palestine", inhabited by "Palestinians", was in existence, and that it continued to exist, even under the yoke of successive conquering empires, until the creation of modern Israel brutally usurped it in 1948 -- the implication being that Today's "Palestinian" Arabs are the descendants of those ancient "Palestinians".

Prior to the Christian era, as a result of the successful Jewish revolt against the Hellenic-Syrian Seleucid Empire in the second century BCE -- commemorated as the Jewish holiday of Chanukah -- the geographic area identified by these revisionist historians as "Palestine" instead hosted the independent nation-state known as Judea, successor entity to the northern biblical kingdom of Israel and to the southern biblical kingdom of Judah; and it was inhabited, not by Arabs, but by Jews. Several hundred years later, in 135, after having long-become a province of the Roman Empire, Judea's third and final revolt against Rome was crushed by Emperor Hadrian; but Rome's army also suffered devastating losses, including the complete annihilation of its illustrious XXII Legion. In furtherance of Rome's costly victory, Hadrian -- in a blatant propaganda effort to delegitimize further national Jewish claims to the Land -- renamed the province Palestina (Palestine) after the Philistines, a long-extinct Aegean people who had disappeared from History approximately a millennium earlier. However, although the province had been converted from Judea (-- Land of the Jews --) into Palestina (-- Land of the Philistines --), and although a vengeful Rome massacred and expelled much of the Land's inhabitants, it nonetheless continued to be populated by Jews, together with substantial minority populations of Christians and Samaritans, but hardly any Arabs, at least until the great Arab invasion of 638, as a result of which -- 73 years later -- Byzantium's Christian basilica known as the Church of Saint Mary of Justinian (which then sat atop Jerusalem's Temple Mount) was remade into Islam's Al-Aksa mosque. But even under the rule of the Arab and all subsequently superseding empires, the Jewish people nevertheless maintained a continuous national presence in "Palestine" -- right up until the resurrection therein of the Jewish nation-state of Israel in 1948.

In contrast, the ersatz people identified nowadays as the "Palestinians" are a collection of diverse Arab clans plus a smattering of other ethnic groups (such as Serbs -- these are the so-called Bosnian Muslims who were Serbian Orthodox Christians before their forced conversion to Islam -- as well as Circassians and Chechens, all imported by the Ottoman Empire from their lands of origin to the Middle East, including the Land of Israel, several centuries ago), which, for reasons virtually identical to those of the Roman Empire, have, since Israel's Six Day War of 1967, publicly declared themselves to be a distinct ethnic nation named after those very same defunct Philistines -- this despite the fact that the ancient Philistines were not even Arabs. That the "Palestinian" Arabs constitute a faux people is hardly surprising due to the fact that, by 1948, a substantial portion of the "Palestinian" Arab population resident in British-administered Mandatory Palestine originated, not from that territory, but rather from the surrounding Arab lands which now comprise the modern states of Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Iraq and Egypt.

In this regard, it is noteworthy that none of the foundational international instruments which deal with the Middle East conflict ever referred to the Arab inhabitants of Mandatory Palestine as the "Palestinian" people; for, prior to Israel's resurrection as a Jewish nation-state in 1948, only the Jewish inhabitants of Mandatory Palestine called themselves, and were known to the World as, "Palestinians", while the Arab inhabitants thereof insisted on identifying themselves as "southern Syrians". In deference to this non-assertion of "Palestinian" Arab ethnic identity, the League of Nations Mandate for Palestine of 1922 referred to the local Arab population, collectively, as "existing non-Jewish communities" while United Nations Security Council Resolution no. 242 of 1967 referred to them, collectively, as "the refugee problem". In other words, the very language of these international instruments confirms that the vaunted concept of a "Palestinian" ethnic identity is a fabrication of more recent origin (popularized together with the nouveau appellation "West Bank" -- a de-Judaizing substitution for the historical names Judea and Samaria -- in the aftermath of the Six Day War).

Moreover, during the 19 years (from 1948 to 1967) that Judea, Samaria, and the eastern portion of Jerusalem, and Gaza were illegally occupied, respectively, by Jordan and Egypt, neither the Arab inhabitants of those areas nor the larger Arab and Muslim worlds ever asserted the existence therein of either an ethnically distinct "Palestinian" people or a historical nation-state of "Palestine"; and, unremarkably, during this same period, there was never any demand from any quarter for the establishment in Judea, Samaria, and the eastern portion of Jerusalem, and Gaza of a "Palestinian" state. In fact, the Arabs of Judea, Samaria, and the eastern portion of Jerusalem, after having emphatically insisted that they were “southern Syrians” prior to Israel’s 1948 War of Independence, supinely accepted that they were “Jordanians” from 1948 to 1967 -- only to assert their identity as “Palestinians” after the Jewish people’s reacquisition of these territories in the Six Day War. Moreover, the leadership of the "Palestinian" people even went so far as to publicly disavow any claim to these very areas during those 19 years of illegal occupation by Jordan and Egypt per Article 24 of the National Covenant of the Palestine Liberation Organization enacted May 28, 1964. The Covenant operatively declared, in part, as follows:

. . .

Article 1. Palestine is an Arab homeland bound by strong Arab national ties to the rest of the Arab countries which together form the large Arab homeland.

Article 2. Palestine with its boundaries at the time of the British Mandate is a regional indivisible unit.

Article 3. The Palestine Arab people has the legitimate right to its homeland and is an inseparable part of the Arab nation. It shares the suffering and aspiration of the Arab nation and its struggle for freedom, sovereignty, progress and unity.

Article 4. The people of Palestine determine their destiny when they complete the liberation of their homeland in accordance with their own wishes and free will and choice.

. . .

Article 17. The partitioning of Palestine in 1947 and the establishment of Israel are illegal and false regardless of the lapse of time, because they were contrary to the wish of the Palestine people and its natural right to its homeland, and in violation of the basic principles embodied in the Charter of the United Nations, foremost among which is the right to self-determination.

Article 18. The Balfour Declaration, the Mandate system and all that has been based upon them are considered a fraud. The claims of historic and spiritual ties between Jews and Palestine are not in agreement with the facts of history or with the true basis of sound statehood. Judaism, because it is a divine religion, is not a nationality with independent existence. Furthermore, the Jews are not one people with an independent personality because they are the citizens of the countries to which they belong.

Article 19. Zionism is a colonialist movement in its inception, aggressive and expansionist in its goal, racist and segregationist in its configurations and fascist in its means and aims. Israel, in its capacity as the spearhead of this destructive movement and the pillar of colonialism, is a permanent source of tension and turmoil in the Middle East in particular and to the international community in general. Because of this the people of Palestine is worthy of the support and sustenance of the community of nations.

Article 20. The causes of peace and security and the needs of right and justice demand from all nations, in order to safeguard true relationships among peoples and to maintain the loyalty of citizens to their homelands, that they consider Zionism an illegal movement and outlaw its presence and activities.

Article 21. The Palestine people believes in the principle of justice, freedom, sovereignty, self-determination, human dignity, and the right of peoples to practice these principles. It also supports all international efforts to bring about peace on the basis of justice and free international cooperation.

Article 22. The people of Palestine believe in peaceful co-existence on the basis of legal existence, for there can be no co-existence with aggression, nor can there be peace with occupation and colonialism.

Article 23. In realizing the goals and principles of this Covenant the Palestine Liberation Organization carries out its complete role to liberate Palestine in accordance with the fundamental law of this Organization.

Article 24. This Organization does not exercise any regional sovereignty over the West Bank in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, in the Gaza Strip or the Himmah area. Its activities will be on the national popular level in the liberational, organizational, political and financial fields.

Article 25. This Organization is charged with the movement of the Palestine people in its struggle to liberate its homeland in all liberational, organizational, political and financial matters, and in all other needs of the Palestine Question in the Arab and international spheres.

Article 26. The Liberation Organization cooperates with all Arab Governments, each according to its ability, and does not interfere in the internal affairs of any Arab State.

. . .

Since the Palestine Liberation Organization's original Covenant explicitly recognized Judea, Samaria, and the eastern portion of Jerusalem, and Gaza as belonging to other Arab states, the only "homeland" of "Palestine" which that organization sought to "liberate" in 1964 was the State of Israel. However, in response to the Jewish people's reclamation in the 1967 Six Day War of those illegally-occupied areas, the Palestine Liberation Organization thereupon revised its Covenant on July 17, 1968 to, inter alia, remove the operative language of Article 24 therefrom, thereby rescinding its prior declaration that those areas were not occupied "Palestine" and thereby newly asserting a "Palestinian" claim of sovereignty thereto.

Furthermore, as regards its dominant Arab element, the "Palestinian" people is not ethnically distinct from the great masses of Arab clans ranging through 22 sovereign Arab nations from Mauritania in the West to Oman in the East. Moreover, never in the annals of History, did the ancestors of the people who now call themselves "Palestinians" ever rule -- or even reside in -- a nation-state of "Palestine", as such a sovereign entity never existed.

Lastly, even the quintessential symbol of the "Palestinian" people, namely, Palestine Liberation Organization chairman and Palestinian Authority president Yasser Arafat, serves to prove its nonexistence. Mr. Arafat is an Egyptian national born in Cairo in1929, some two decades before the creation of modern Israel and some four decades before any assertion of the existence of an ethnically distinct "Palestinian" people (i.e., he is neither a "Palestinian" nor a refugee). And his predecessor as P.L.O. chairman, Ahmed Shukeiry, was a Saudi Arabian national.

In truth, the "Palestinian" designation is geographical rather than ethnic; for, the "Palestinian" Arabs are no more a distinct ethnic people than are Texans or Californians (and no one suggests that either of the latter have the juridical right to establish a separate ethnic nation-state).

Occasionally, even "Palestinian" leaders themselves admit as much. As candidly stated by Zahir Muhsein, then head of the P.L.O. Military Department and a member of its Executive Committee: "The Palestinian people does not exist. The creation of a Palestinian state is only a means for continuing our struggle against the State of Israel for our Arab unity. In reality, Today, there is no difference between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese. Only for political and tactical reasons do we speak, Today, about the existence of a Palestinian people, since Arab national interests demand that we posit the existence of a distinct Palestinian people to oppose Zionism. For tactical reasons, Jordan -- which is a sovereign state with defined borders -- cannot raise claims to Haifa and Jaffa. While, as a Palestinian, I can undoubtedly demand Haifa, Jaffa, Beersheba and Jerusalem. However, the moment we reclaim our right to all of Palestine, we will not wait even a minute to unite Palestine and Jordan." (Amsterdam-based newspaper "Dagblad de Verdieping Trouw", March 31, 1977).

Consequently, the spurious claim of a separate and distinct "Palestinian" ethnic identity -- together with its corollary assertion of contemporary "Palestinian" ownership of the Land of Israel by virtue of the prior existence therein of a fictional nation-state of "Palestine" -- is merely a modern adaptation by the Arab nations and the larger Muslim world of that ancient propaganda device fashioned by the Roman Empire to delegitimize the almost four millennia old national Jewish claim to the biblical Land of Israel.

[Note: Just as the "Palestinians" are not an authentic ethnic group, neither are the Israelis -- comprising Jews, Circassians, Samaritans, Arabs and (those descendants of Arabs known as) Druzim -- an authentic ethnic group. However, the Jews -- unlike the "Palestinians" -- are such an ethnic group.]

Israel was promised to Abraham Izak and Jacob by God that this lands is thiers and thier children for ever.

Are Abraham Izak and Jacob still Realtors?

*****
Century 21, I heard.

I'm firmly of the opinion that if Justice Souter and his cohorts have the right to give away other peoples' land, it's only fair that God should have the right to give away his own.

*****

Oh come on, the Supreme Court in a wrong decision recognized the authority of state and local government to take private land under certain challenged circumstances. There never was any question about the Eminent Domain power itself, one specifically found in the Constitution.

There are enormous proof problems re God disposing of terrestrial holdings since there's no proof that he/she/it exists and even if so, no deeds have been recorded by the putative deity establishing minimal claims to possession in fee simple absolute (or its equivalent in Israeli law).

"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former."

Israel was promised to Abraham Izak and Jacob by God that this lands is thiers and thier children for ever.

Are Abraham Izak and Jacob still Realtors?

*****
Century 21, I heard.

I'm firmly of the opinion that if Justice Souter and his cohorts have the right to give away other peoples' land, it's only fair that God should have the right to give away his own.

*****

Oh come on, the Supreme Court in a wrong decision recognized the authority of state and local government to take private land under certain challenged circumstances. There never was any question about the Eminent Domain power itself, one specifically found in the Constitution.

There are enormous proof problems re God disposing of terrestrial holdings since there's no proof that he/she/it exists and even if so, no deeds have been recorded by the putative deity establishing minimal claims to possession in fee simple absolute (or its equivalent in Israeli law).

Oh come on yourself -- God didn't give someone else's land to the Jews in order to increase the tax base. No one ever accused God of being a liberal.

Israel was promised to Abraham Izak and Jacob by God that this lands is thiers and thier children for ever.

Are Abraham Izak and Jacob still Realtors?

*****
Century 21, I heard.

I'm firmly of the opinion that if Justice Souter and his cohorts have the right to give away other peoples' land, it's only fair that God should have the right to give away his own.

*****

Oh come on, the Supreme Court in a wrong decision recognized the authority of state and local government to take private land under certain challenged circumstances. There never was any question about the Eminent Domain power itself, one specifically found in the Constitution.

There are enormous proof problems re God disposing of terrestrial holdings since there's no proof that he/she/it exists and even if so, no deeds have been recorded by the putative deity establishing minimal claims to possession in fee simple absolute (or its equivalent in Israeli law).

Oh come on yourself -- God didn't give someone else's land to the Jews in order to increase the tax base. No one ever accused God of being a liberal.

*****

I agree but have you read X. Yoohoopetz, God's Grant of Ancient Israel to Modern Palestinians as His Affirmative Action Initiative: An Original Theory, 23 Biblical Real Estate Transactions Law Rev. 268 (1985)? It might be an eye-opener for you.

"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former."

Ralph wrote:I agree but have you read X. Yoohoopetz, God's Grant of Ancient Israel to Modern Palestinians as His Affirmative Action Initiative: An Original Theory, 23 Biblical Real Estate Transactions Law Rev. 268 (1985)? It might be an eye-opener for you.

Ralph wrote:I agree but have you read X. Yoohoopetz, God's Grant of Ancient Israel to Modern Palestinians as His Affirmative Action Initiative: An Original Theory, 23 Biblical Real Estate Transactions Law Rev. 268 (1985)? It might be an eye-opener for you.

Is this another of your puckish put-ons?

*****

You can best guard your reputation as a lawyer by not showing your ignorance of important legal scholarship. A word to the wise, my dear.

"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former."

Ralph wrote:You can best guard your reputation as a lawyer by not showing your ignorance of important legal scholarship. A word to the wise, my dear.

I never claimed to be a lawyer for all subjects, no matter what the ABA says about fungibility and lack of specialization. I'm a Federal Procurement lawyer, an expert on the Federal Acquisition Regulations, CFR Title 48, and parts of USC Titles 10, 40, and 41, nothing more. On any other subject, I would be malpractice on the hoof.

Ralph wrote:You can best guard your reputation as a lawyer by not showing your ignorance of important legal scholarship. A word to the wise, my dear.

I never claimed to be a lawyer for all subjects, no matter what the ABA says about fungibility and lack of specialization. I'm a Federal Procurement lawyer, an expert on the Federal Acquisition Regulations, CFR Title 48, and parts of USC Titles 10, 40, and 41, nothing more. On any other subject, I would be malpractice on the hoof.

*****

Right, so take the time to read the article I cited so you can participate fully in this important discussion.

"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former."